Jogger: `I Knew He Was Going To Rape Me'

Boca Woman Lends Her Voice To Crusade

June 7, 1996|By SARAH RAGLAND Staff Writer

Emilia Arrington has cold, clear memories of the night of Sept. 12.

She remembers looking down at the debris in a vacant lot in Boca Del Mar, sure the crushed grass and flowers were the last things she'd see, sure she'd be killed and left to rot there, a half-mile from her home.

"I don't know if it's just being a woman or instinct, but I knew he was going to rape me," she says. "I didn't know if he was going to kill me or not."

Fear gripped her that night and hasn't let go.

The fear has prodded her to lend her voice, her name and her story to the fight against rape.

"I have to stand up and say this is a social problem," she says of her decision to go public. "[The rape) will always be in my head, it will always be in me. I would be horrified if it happened to anyone else."

It is happening every day.

Arrington was one of the 381 people who reported being raped in Palm Beach County last year, one of the 6,824 people who reported being raped statewide, according to Florida Department of Law Enforcement statistics.

That's an average of more than one rape a day in the county, almost 19 a day in the state.

"I'd like to think that Boca Raton and Palm Beach County are safer places for women, but the evidence says they are not," said Rosalind Murray, president of the South Palm Beach County Chapter of the National Organization for Women.

"We have been taught that rape is wrong," Murray said. "But we are going to have to do more in our schools and churches and synagogues to educate people."

Arrington, 29, a waitress who never before has been called to social action, is ready to do her part.

She is haunted by people - including her mother - who asked her why she was out so late that night. And, by the harsh words of her attacker, who told jurors she was a prostitute who offered to "date" him for $100.

The accusations - unintended and bald-faced - were clear: She asked for it.

It is not enough for her to know that Noel K. Bango, the man who told police he had sex with her that night, was convicted of sexual battery on Wednesday and could spend the rest of his life behind bars.

She wants people to be angry and upset about her rape, about all rapes.

She wants people to stop asking what women are doing when they are out alone at night.

"Society is so judgmental, people are so afraid to say what happened," she says. "The issue is not what I was doing out that night. The issue is why was he raping me."

-- Arrington, who was working two jobs at the time, decided to go out for a run after getting home from work.

An enthusiastic jogger, she ran at night because that's when she has time.

"People used to tell me, `Don't run at night,' but people do it all the time," Arrington said. "I figured it's OK. It's a busy area."

Arrington put on jogging shorts and a crop-top, plugged REM's Monster compact disc into her Walkman and headed out the door.

She jogged from her parents' Boca Del Mar home east to Toledo Road. She was heading back toward home - was less than a mile away - when she felt someone grab her from behind on Palmetto Circle North.

It was about 11:40 p.m. Let Me In, the 10th track on the compact disc, was playing as Arrington was shoved into the empty lot.

"I said, `Oh my God,' and I was flailing around," she said. "He pushed me in the dirt and was lying on top of me."

She screamed and struggled. She tried everything she knew about self-defense, aiming for her attacker's eyes, throat and groin.

The rapist squeezed her esophagus, choking out her screams and all her breath.

"I remember hearing that sound, like a last gasp," she says.

She decided to go limp, hoping that the man would just let go. When she relaxed, he eased up.

She tried to dissuade her attacker by telling him she had a venereal disease. He pulled out a condom.

"He said I was going to be a tough one," she says. "I was like, `OK, OK, please don't kill me.''' When it was over, she was thankful she survived.

-- Police dispatched a description of Arrington's attacker over the radio within minutes of her 911 call, which she made just after the attack.

Bango, 34, a limousine driver from Delray Beach, was arrested within an hour.

Bango's van was stopped on Palmetto Park Road, not far from the empty lot.

Arrington - huddled in the back of a police cruiser - identified him.

Bango said she was a prostitute who got scratched and bruised when they fought after he demanded a partial refund, he said.

Bango's defense attorney belabored the point, asking why Arrington had her navel pierced, holding up the tiny crop-top for the jurors to see.

Arrington called the defense tactics "medieval."

"This is why people don't stand up for themselves. They are afraid that they will be put on trial," she says. "I definitely felt like I was on trial, and they were accusing me and I was being judged - and I suppose I was."

Jurors didn't buy Bango's story. Bango gave them little reason to. He admitted on the stand that he lied to police that night.